When to Apply Discounts to Your Company Price List
Discounting is one of the simplest sales weapons to use and one of the easiest to misuse. A well-placed markdown frees up warehouse space, unlocks capital and gets you in with a new customer. A markdown made out of habit, on the other hand, trains your customers to buy only when things are on sale and erodes your profits one piece at a time. The difference isn't in the percentage, but in the when and the why. Let's look at how to decide with your head and not your gut.
Targeted timed discount or "blanket" discount?
Here's the first fork in the road. A timed discount has a precise goal (clearing out a stock, pushing an item, covering a dead period), hits a few chosen products and ends on a set date. A "blanket" discount, on the other hand, cuts the whole price list, with no target and often no end: it looks generous, but in practice it burns margin even on products you would have sold anyway at full price.
Every euro of discount you give away on an item that's already in demand is a euro that leaves your till without bringing you new orders. The rule is simple: you discount to obtain something you wouldn't obtain without the discount. If you don't know what you want to obtain, it's not the time to discount.
The right moments to apply a discount
There are situations where a markdown is a smart choice, not a surrender. The most common ones:
- Aging or seasonal stock: products sitting idle for months, items tied to a season that's ending, material at risk of expiring or going out of fashion. Better to recover cash than to keep shelves frozen.
- End of line: when you discontinue a product or switch versions, a discount closes the matter quickly and makes room for the new one.
- Freeing up capital and space: idle goods are frozen money and occupied warehouse space. A targeted markdown turns stock into cash to reinvest.
- Pushing a new product: a launch price invites customers to try it; then it goes back to full value.
- Low season: during dead periods a scheduled discount keeps revenue alive and production busy, instead of leaving it idle.
A discount isn't there to sell more, it's there to sell the right thing at the right time.
The end date is not a detail
This is where everything is decided. A discount with no expiry isn't a discount: it's simply your new price. If you leave a markdown running "for as long as it lasts", customers stop perceiving it as a deal and treat it as the product's normal value. From that point on, going back to full price becomes a battle, and every order goes through that lower baseline.
That's why the end date must be decided before you start, not improvised. A discount with a clear beginning and end creates urgency ("it's only for a few days"), defends the perception of value and automatically brings you back to the list price once the promotion has served its purpose. Scheduled markdowns, that is, decided in advance with an expiry, are the opposite of the discount granted over the phone "just to close the order".
Protecting the margin: differentiate by period and channel
A smart discount always starts from the margin, not from the selling price. Before applying it you should know how much is left in your pocket after the cut: a markdown that takes an item below cost isn't a promotion, it's a loss disguised as strategy.
It also helps to differentiate. Not every period and not every channel deserves the same treatment: you can push an item with your resellers without touching it for the direct customer, or apply a markdown only in the slow month and not in high season. That way you concentrate the effort where it's needed and protect the margin where the product already walks on its own.
When NOT to discount
There are cases where a markdown is just a pointless gift:
- The product already sells well: if it moves at full price, a discount just makes you collect less for the same volume. You fix nothing, you simply lose out.
- The problem is visibility: if an item doesn't sell because no one sees it or understands it, price has nothing to do with it. First fix the product page, photos, placement and information; a discount on an invisible product stays invisible.
- The margin is already thin: where you earn a few cents, there's no room to cut without going into the red. Better to work on costs, minimum quantities or bundles.
How VERC makes discounting safe
The biggest risk, when you discount, is the mess: forgotten discounts still active, prices that never climb back up, cuts decided without knowing how much you're losing. The Price Lists module of VERC is designed precisely to remove these risks. You can apply temporary price changes, that is, price-list discounts targeted at a single item or an entire category, for a period with a precise end date. Before confirming, you see a preview of the effect as a percentage and in euros, so you know exactly where the margin ends up. And above all, at expiry the price returns on its own to the list value: no markdown stays switched on by mistake.
In practice you have the timed discount you need, with scheduled markdowns under control and the price list always consistent, whether you use it to clear out stock or to launch a new product. If you want to try managing promotions without the fear of ruining your prices, VERC is in the cloud, works from any device and you can put it to the test free for 30 days: the simplest way to start discounting with judgment instead of by gut.